


Light Hath No Tongue, But Is All Eye

by likehandlingroses



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Falling In Love, Flirting, Gift Giving, Love Letters, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Canon, Richard Ellis POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:41:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22392694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: Richard has spent his life learning how to guess...but Thomas Barrow is something he wants to be sure of.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 22
Kudos: 179





	Light Hath No Tongue, But Is All Eye

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from John Dunne's poem, "Break of Day." 
> 
> Thank you for reading!!

Richard tucked the fob back in his pocket—the third time in as many minutes he’d firmly decided to put his decision off until later. 

He managed to close his suitcase before reaching into his pocket again, as if the fob itself could tell him what he needed to know: would giving such a token to Mr. Barrow be a step too far? 

He didn’t think so, after everything they’d said, after everything that had happened...but Mr. Barrow was the sort of man Richard felt terrified of guessing about. He craved a certainty that he rarely sought out. 

People usually thought Richard understood more than he did, but all he really understood—and had done from an early age—was that you could guess wrong quite a few times before anyone thought less of you. People spent so much time laboring over when and how to ask a question, when really what got you answers was filling in your own and seeing what stuck. 

There were exceptions to this, and even more rules, but there was no end of rewards in mastering it. Most people found Richard Ellis agreeable, friendly...and clever and charismatic besides. It was all in the guessing. 

But guessing felt so horribly insufficient in this case. Richard pocketed the fob again, reassuring himself that he had a little more time before he had to decide. A little more time to poke around and see what answers Mr. Barrow might give him. 

“Finished already?”

Richard dropped the clasp of his suitcase as he turned on his heel towards Mr. Barrow, who stood in the doorway, a self-satisfied grin on his face. As if he were getting away with something, standing there and looking Richard over.

And maybe he was...Richard bit back a grin of his own, staring down at the unfinished clasp as if it would transform him into the steady, level-headed man of thirty-five he was _supposed_ to be. Not the sixteen year old with butterflies in his stomach and a wandering eye. 

_A silly boy,_ as Mr. Barrow had so charmingly put it last night. The comparison comforted him, though it did nothing at all about the butterflies. 

“Nearly,” he said, quietly enough that Mr. Barrow had to step in from the doorway. Even as he did so, the voices coming from the hall seemed to dull. As if the edges of Richard’s senses now shifted at Mr. Barrow’s movements instead of his own.

What a ridiculous, wonderful fix to be in...he didn’t bother to hide his watchful stare as Mr. Barrow surveyed the room. 

“You checked all the drawers?” he said, his smile widening at Richard’s sigh. “Only making sure you don’t leave anything behind, Mr. Ellis…”

“Not much to leave.”

“All the more reason to check.” And even with a glint in his eye, Richard could sense a sincerity in the words. Years of domestic service had a way of instilling a certain sensibility, one of care and precision. Care and precision, taught so they might ease the lives of those already at ease, those who had too much in life to ever miss anything for more than a moment. 

Mr. Barrow was resourceful enough to realize the skills might transfer. Or perhaps the traits were his by nature, and Downton Abbey only borrowed his attention. 

Richard had met and befriended many of the first sort...but the second sort was harder to find. People—as a rule—didn’t think. Didn’t notice. Didn’t care for much beyond the edge of their nose. 

Mr. Barrow seemed cut from something else. Something entirely to Richard’s taste. 

“Suppose you’re ready to be back in charge, once we’re gone,” he said, treading lightly at the admission that their time together was quickly vanishing. 

“If they’ll let me.” He shrugged off Richard’s look of concern. “No, Lord Grantham is fair—I heard it from Mr. Bates he was against it from the start.” 

He smiled to himself, as if this were something novel, though Richard was hardly surprised. No one downstairs had looked anything but puzzled at the former butler’s taking over proceedings (and then promptly handing them over to Mr. Wilson). 

“Besides, Mr. Carson will be yearning for his vegetable patch once the lustre fades,” Mr. Barrow said, rolling his shoulders back. No love lost there...Richard supposed they could take up an afternoon with the reasons why. 

“They’ll be glad to have you back at the helm.”

That made Mr. Barrow sheepish...Richard couldn’t work out, yet, where his words would land. 

“I don’t know about that…” he said, though already Richard could hear a note of pride in his voice. Perhaps he didn’t _know_ it. But he thought it. Believed it, maybe, on a good day. 

Richard supposed Mr. Barrow believed plenty of things on a good day. He seemed that sort. 

“Well, I know it,” he said, grinning Mr. Barrow’s raised eyebrow. And now he was posing, just a little, his shyness almost forgotten. “People talk.”

A slow nod, eyes on his. Back to getting away with something. 

“And you’re good at listening when they do, aren’t you?”

“Think so.”

He could have kissed him right then. Pushed the trinket into his hands and watched him puzzle over it all during breakfast. 

He almost did. 

Before he could take a step, Mr. Barrow spoke in a low voice. 

“Everyone’s gone down.” Which he couldn’t know for certain was true, though the silence in the hall certainly suggested it. 

All the more reason to button things up now...but Mr. Barrow’s smirk pushed Richard into a particularly risky guess. 

He stepped forward. 

“After you, then.”

He’d guessed right—Mr. Barrow’s eyes widened, and there was laughter in the breath he let out. He lingered another moment before turning around, but Richard stayed resolute. 

He had time, and he was going to take it. 

* * *

Richard sat back against his pillow, reading Thomas’s letter over for a second time. 

_It’s been months, and I’ve never asked for the story behind your parting gift. It works as you intended—I keep it with me always._ He told Richard that before, though Richard didn’t think he’d ever tire of hearing it. 

_But before it was mine it was yours, and I wonder about that time. Where it came from, what adventures it’s been on._

Richard was past the point of being flattered that Thomas thought he was interesting. Now, he felt himself waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the day Thomas would realize how haphazard his life had been, how much of it had been spent wondering and watching. 

Thomas might be kind enough to pretend it didn’t matter, and Richard felt sure he’d claim he felt the same way...but that couldn’t be true. After all, Thomas had sworn up and down that his night out in York “wasn’t like him.” Richard supposed that was only technically true if you rated being arrested for dancing with another man as far less interesting than saving ladies from fires and catching the eye of dukes. To say nothing of running Downton as a convalescent home during The War...and being the youngest butler in England besides. 

Thomas was clever about literature, about cards, clocks, and cricket...Richard was the best person he knew at impressions, and he’d spent a lot of time being sick in other countries. 

Sooner or later, the disparity would come to light. What that would mean for their relationship, Richard could only guess. 

Thankfully, he had a knack for guessing. 

_Thomas,_

_I’d like to hear the adventures and stories you’ve imagined for the gift I gave you. Trinkets ought to have stories, especially ones being passed on._

_I’m afraid it’s just as I told you: I’d had it for years. I borrowed it from my grandfather one Christmas as a boy—it caught my fancy, I imagine. A man in the moon. I couldn’t have thought something so exciting up if I’d tried—and my mother’ll tell you I tried like no other:_

_‘That boy believed everything he was told and a thousand things he wasn’t.’ That’s what she always says, and she’s probably right._

_I’ve spoiled her favorite joke, so if you ever meet, you’ll have to pretend I didn’t tell you. But I wanted to give you a laugh, to make up for there not being a story._

_I could be clever about it. Say that meeting you was like catching sight of something I’d believed in with no proof, until suddenly there it was. Like my own man in the moon._

_But the truth of it is, I had nothing else to give, and it seemed bad luck, to cast off without leaving something behind. I don’t know why. Suppose that’s something else I believe with no backing._

_That’s the truth that I’m afraid of admitting: I’m too old to have so few trinkets, to have those trinkets attached to so few stories. I feel as if everyone I know can talk and talk on end, and I’ve finished before tea’s been poured._

_Nothing could be duller than someone worrying they’re dull, but I do worry. Perhaps you’ll realize I don’t know as much as I’d like to, that too much of me is filled with things I haven’t seen or heard, only wanted very badly._

_Then again, perhaps you’ll like it better, knowing your story is the first it’ll have. Our story. There’s something charming in that. Or I think so. Perhaps it’s only that I don’t know any better._

_I hope you don’t mind that. I don’t think you do._

_Your,_

_Richard_

The reply was a good deal shorter than his own letter, though it was accompanied by a small package:

_Richard,_

_I don’t mind anything about you, and I don’t think I ever will, much._

_You take your ideas for granted. Most people don’t have the imagination to fill their ring finger with ideas about things they want. I know I don’t have the trick of it. Wanting’s a feeling, for me, and not a friendly one. I can’t see what it’s made of, but I can’t ever forget it’s there, deciding whether it’ll burn me up._

(Like the sun, Richard thought). 

_You’d say something clever about that. I won’t try to. We’ve only two more weeks, now, and I’m saving up all my bright ideas. I don’t have as many as you do, so you must try and be impressed._

_Your,_

_Thomas_

_P.S. Miss Baxter found the enclosed in Ripon. I thought she’d brought it back to prove to me she’d taken her eyes off of Molesley for an entire minute, but she said it was for you. She thinks it’s very clever...you’ll have to decide. At any rate, that’s its story._

Richard laughed as the bronze fob fell into his hand—the edges of the circle carried a tarnish that wasn’t likely to ever come off, but the sun in the center shone in a way that only came about through care and precision. 

No one paid him much mind at dinner, but that was for the best: Richard couldn’t stop reaching for his pocket, the corners of his mouth twitching each time. 

Thomas wasn’t a bad guesser, either. 

* * *

The Yorkshire sky boasted only a few wispy clouds, and the sun beamed down in just that sort of way that made every schoolboy and girl restless to go out and do something— _anything,_ so long as they could feel a part of the world. 

Those days ended, even as the sun came out as it always had, on a world that was much the same. Time had a way of stealing opportunity. There were no parents to plead with for a few more minutes in the setting sun, no too-short trousers meant for play...people lost their kinship with the sun as they grew. 

It was worse for men like them—men in service—who spent most sunny days stuck inside...and the days spent outside were typically hot and dull, accompanied by starched collars and tired arms and— 

“—squinting,” Thomas said, lying back on the blanketed grass. “And who decided we’d all have to stand outside without so much as a cap?”

But he wasn’t wearing a hat, now, either—he had one hand tucked under his head, his eyes comfortably shut even as he grumbled about how of course he was speaking of a ‘we’ that didn’t _actually_ include Richard, as _he_ was permitted to dress like an adult…

His grumbling quieted as Richard’s fingers traced patterns along his arm. And there was the smile...Richard laughed before leaning down to kiss him. Thomas—determined to spend his afternoon reclining—returned the gesture with a lazy fondness, his free hand draped across the back of Richard’s neck. 

He sighed as Richard kissed along his jaw. 

“You’ll have to watch for—”

“I’m watching, I’m watching…”

“You can’t be,” Thomas said, even as he drew Richard closer. 

Richard jerked his head up to survey the still-deserted countryside. Thomas sighed as Richard moved out of reach, though he didn’t open his eyes to see the pointed look Richard threw him. 

“I’m _watching,”_ he said teasingly, taking Thomas’s hand. “You’ll fall asleep, you know that?”

Thomas tugged their hands towards the center of his chest, and Richard let himself be pulled along with them. Thomas grinned as some of Richard’s weight settled on his arm. 

“I won’t.”

Richard leaned forward. “You _will.”_

“I _won’t.”_

“I love you.”

A perfect guess, and one Richard had been wanting to make for much longer than was sensible. Thomas’s eyes snapped open, all the guile gone from his face. His stare moved across Richard—bemused and eager and _hungry,_ in that way a man got hungry when he sat down to his favorite meal. 

And as he searched—mouth open like a trout—one of them must have shifted and let in the sun. Thomas was starting to squint as he stared up at him. 

“We can’t have that,” Richard laughed, leaning so his face covered Thomas’s in a shadow. 

It was as good a time as any for a kiss. 

“You’re not watching…” Thomas murmured as Richard pulled back, a smile on the edge of his words. His eyes were closed again, his hand cupping Richard’s cheek. 

“I am.”

“You’re…” But he stopped, eyes opening again to stare up at Richard. The smile hadn’t left his eyes, but he’d returned to searching as well. 

He was almost finished with it, Richard guessed. There was something less frantic about it—like he knew the answer already, and only wanted to be sure of it.

“I’m what?”

Thomas blinked, and the search was finished. 

“I love you, but you’re not watching,” he said, his chin lifted. He smiled into Richard’s next kiss, and the sun felt warm in a way it hadn’t since Richard was a boy. 

He lay back next to Thomas, his own eyes closing as he drank in the sun. For the better part of an hour, _neither_ of them were watching.

Though—if Richard had to guess—he supposed Thomas's suddenly restless form had sat up and opened its eyes a few more times than he’d ever own up to. 


End file.
